NASCAR: Texas Motor Speedway cuts ticket prices for 2013 race

Texas Motor Speedway officials have decided to cut ticket prices on more than 15,000 seats at the Fort Worth track for 2013.

The rest of the tickets will have the same price as before. The decision came as a surprise, as the Texas track hosted the best-attended event on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit in 2012. Although approximately 159,000 people watched the Samsung Mobile 500 at the speedway last year, some seats were left unsold, prompting TMS to charge fans less in order to sell all the tickets for this year’s race.

“We drew the biggest crowd of 2012, so it runs against the thought of how you do business with the free enterprise system. If you’re selling out or doing well, you raise prices. … But the best way to show you’re fan friendly is to lower your prices,” track president and promoter Eddie Gossage told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram.

Approximately 8,000 tickets on the frontstretch will be priced at $49 for the Cup races, down from $86 in 2012. The seats are on the corners and in the first 10 rows between the frontstretch and Turns 1 and 4. The $49 price is the least expensive a frontstretch ticket has been since 1998, with Gossage admitting those sections haven’t been as full as they could be.